


Five Blocks

by pearbean



Category: Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-10
Updated: 2007-03-10
Packaged: 2020-10-29 22:41:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20804159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearbean/pseuds/pearbean
Summary: Tim gets hurt and ends up in Bernard's kitchen.





	Five Blocks

**Author's Note:**

> Because I like Bernard and I got obsessed with Te's fics.

** Five Blocks **

Tim scrabbled for a grip on the lintel of the roof just to his right and hauled himself onto the roof. He lay for a few seconds on his back, staring at the stars, until he remembered the grapple wedged in the guttering. He felt for it awkwardly, and snagged it with his fingertips, hooking it back into his belt.

He could hear the gang below him, taunting him.

Stupid, stupid mistake.

He’d misjudged them badly, catching sight of them beating someone up in an alley on his way back to the ’cave. He’d dropped into the centre of their group, hoping that the Bat-aura he so carefully cultivated would put enough fear in them to make them back off a little and give him a head start. He’d been wrong.

He’d also miscounted, since a good few more thugs had slunk out of the shadows at his appearance, waving things which looked a good deal more unpleasant than fists. He counted himself lucky that he’d managed to catch sight of the one with the gun in time to make sure the bullet didn’t hit anything too important, like, say, his internal organs. The fact that his leg was pretty important as well hadn’t really occurred to him until he’d tried instinctively to kick a couple of the guys wielding bicycle chains.

They’d got in a few good punches and kicks before he’d finally managed to fire off a grapple and get himself onto the roof.

The stars were swimming, and he could hear Oracle saying something into his ear. He sat up and pressed his fingertips to the earpiece until her voice became audible.

“… all right, R? Shall I send someone out?”

His shoulder hurt, and he put a hand up to it, feeling the stickiness even with his gauntlet on. Huh, the guy with the gun must have got off another shot while Tim was busy being beaten up. The clinical “Batman” part of his brain was telling him that it must have been at close range for it to have pierced the Kevlar of his armour like that. It was also telling him that he probably ought to be doing something about it.

“…Robin?”

“Yes?”

“Do. You. Need. Help?”

He looked about him, then removed two field dressings from his belt and applied them as he’d been taught to his thigh and shoulder. The Batman in his brain didn’t stop talking.

“Robin, I’m calling B, he’s within 10 minutes of your position. Please respond.”

_Get somewhere safe. Don’t let yourself get caught in the open. Don’t leave behind any evidence, traceable or otherwise._

He considered his Batcycle, but realised that driving might be a bad idea if he couldn’t even really focus on his own feet. His nearest bolthole was the ‘cave, it was too close for there to be any other safehouses, but it was still quite a way by foot.

“Robin! Respond! I swear, you batboys are all alike.”

If he could get home… but getting in without disturbing Dana or his Dad was sufficiently difficult when he was uninjured. He didn’t like to think of his chances at the moment.

Bernard.

Bernard and his parents were away for the weekend- a family wedding. Bernard had bitched about it for the whole week. Bernard’s house was only five blocks away, and they’d never even know he’d been there.  
  
He used his protease spray on the small pool of blood he’d created, breaking it down so that there would be no recoverable DNA. Then he levered himself to his feet.

Five blocks.

He could make it.

* * *

Tim lay on Bernard’s kitchen floor, listening to the reassuring beep in his earpiece that told him that his homing beacon was working. He was glad it was dark, because he felt sure that otherwise he’d be able to see the dots that were dancing in front of his eyes a lot more clearly.

He’d just about had it in him to pick the lock on the kitchen door, but he knew he’d been careless about noise. He was thankful that the neighbours appeared to have been asleep. When he’d finally got the door open, it had made such an incredible din he’d almost given up, but the dark safety of the house had beckoned.

It wasn’t until Tim heard the footsteps creaking in the hall that he realised that he’d made his second stupid mistake of the night. He rolled his head back until he had a wonky, upside-down view of the kitchen door as it swung open.

Bernard stood there, in blue and white striped pyjama bottoms and a green T-shirt, hair mussed, brandishing a baseball bat. His hand snaked to the wall, and pressed the light switch. Immediately Tim closed his eyes against the blinding ceiling light, and he was sure Bernard was having similar difficulties.

When Tim was finally able to open his eyes, the look he saw on Bernard’s face was almost comical. Tim watched as his friend slowly lowered the baseball bat. Then, with reverence, exclaimed, “Holy shit. Robin.”

Tim decided that talking would be a bad idea, so he just looked warily at Bernard, though he wasn’t sure if the expression came across since half his face was still covered by the mask. Bernard walked up to him until his bare feet were level with Tim’s head, and stood for a while staring down at his face.

“You know, I thought you were a myth. I suppose that’s something you cultivate.”

He crouched down and peered into the mask’s eye holes. Tim blinked back at him.

“Oh good, alive. I was worried for a minute how I was going to explain to my parents how Robin ended up exsanguinated on our kitchen floor while they were away for the weekend.”

He snagged a cushion off one of the kitchen chairs and wedged it under Tim’s head, then went and rummaged under the sink. He came back with a first-aid box, and sat down cross-legged just off Tim’s left elbow.

“First-aid’s not my thing,” he said, “Medical dramas are the only human trauma I usually allow in my immediate vicinity. So, no offence, Robin, but watching you bleed is making me nauseous.”

He pressed a square of cotton wadding gingerly over the field dressing on Tim’s leg, which was already almost soaked through. He prodded it, and snatched his hand back hastily when Tim flinched.

“Oh, hey, sorry…” he muttered vaguely, then managed to locate a roll of gauze bandage which he proceeded to wind around Tim’s leg in a surprisingly expert way. He got to the end of the roll, and for a few seconds he waved the end of the bandage aimlessly around, until he had the idea of using the safety-pin from the bandage to hold it down.

Then he started to flick through an emergency treatment manual that was tucked into a pocket in the front of the first-aid box.

“Okay… so, you’re breathing. Good start. Means you’re alive, and I don’t have to resuscitate you. Famous as you are, my friend, getting up close and personal with you just isn’t on my agenda,” he raised an eyebrow, “yet.”  
Awake and responsive? Let’s see… Well, awake, yes,” Bernard leaned over and peered into the mask again. “Awake. But… considering how scintillating your conversation has been so far, I don’t know if I can, with clear conscience, call you lucid or coherent. As for…”

He broke off abruptly as the kitchen door was flung back and Batman stalked in, cape fluttering with the heavy sound of a large amount of fabric caught in a satisfyingly strong air current. Bernard gaped, and backed up against the table-leg.

Batman ignored him, attention focused on his partner. He crossed the floor in three strides and had scooped Tim up off the blue and white linoleum before Tim had even had time to really register his presence.

At the door, Batman paused, turning his head back towards Bernard.

“Thank you for taking care of him.”

“… A pleasure,” Bernard stammered, barely able to believe that he had Batman standing in his kitchen. Batman inclined his head once, stepped over the threshold, and was gone into the night with a quiet click of the kitchen door.

* * *

Two days later, Tim was back in school with some of Alfred’s neat stitches and a note excusing him from gym class. Bernard collared him at the school gate.

“Drake! You are never going to believe what happened to me this weekend.”

“I take it that it was an interesting wedding?”

“Wedding? …oh no, I didn’t go to that ghastly excuse for a family gathering. I complained so much that my dear sainted parents told Aunt Felicia that I was dying of some obscure tropical illness. Home alone, dear boy, all weekend. But that’s not the best thing. On Saturday-”

“-You stayed in and watched the Arnie marathon on satellite?”

“Will you just shut up for five minutes and let me talk, Drake!? On Saturday night I was… all right so I was watching the Arnie marathon. But anyway, I heard a noise downstairs. So I took my trusty baseball bat-“

“Trusty baseball bat?”

“Yes, my trusty baseball bat, and I went down to see what it was. You’ll never guess...”

“Aliens? Localised Temporal Anomaly?”

“Robin. THE Robin.”

“Robin.”

“Yes. I went downstairs and found Robin semi-conscious on my mother’s kitchen floor.”

“You expect me to believe that you had Robin in your house? I’m not even going near this one, Bernard. For a start, Robin’s not even real. He’s, like, some kind of urban legend.”

“I know, man. But he was hurt somehow.”

“Next you’ll be telling me Batman showed up and taught you how to tap-dance or something.”

“Batman did show up. But only to pick up Robin. He didn’t stay long. But you know what he said?”

“I don’t know Bernard, what did he say? ‘Without you, Bernard, the criminal underworld would have triumphed tonight.’?”

“No need for that, Timothy, it’s unbecoming in a young gentleman such as yourself. He said ‘Thanks for taking care of him.’ Batman. Batman said that to me.”

Tim patted Bernard on the shoulder. “Good for you, Bernard. I still think you’re a delusional mental case, but if it makes you feel better…”

They climbed the steps up to the main school building, heading for their lockers. As they went through the doors, a jock at least a foot and a half taller than Tim and travelling in the opposite direction, slammed half into them. A grumbled “Sorry, man,” drifted back to them.

Grimacing, Tim clutched his arm, hissing slightly through his teeth.

“Hey, Drake, you OK?”

“Oh, yeah, fine. Just… um, sprained my shoulder playing basketball. C’mon, we’re gonna be late for class.”

Tim set off down the corridor, leaving Bernard staring thoughtfully after him.


End file.
